Saturday, October 30, 2021
Chuck Charnquist, longtime Portland Trail Blazers statistician and historian, dies at 89: ‘He was the consummate PR professional’
Chuck Charnquist, longtime Portland Trail Blazers statistician and historian, dies at 89: ‘He was the consummate PR professional’
By Aaron Fentress, Oregonian, Oct. 30, 2021
Chuck Charnquist, the longtime Portland Trail Blazers statistician and historian who died Thursday at age 89, never met a sports statistic he didn’t like. Well, maybe some that spelled bad news for the Blazers. But even those received the same level of respect Charnquist gave to all stats.
Numbers were his life. Specifically, those attached to the action on the court or on a field. Compiling those numbers born from intense action became his passion.
“Numbers tell a story; it’s like looking at a painting,” Charnquist told The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2013 shortly before retiring after 43 years with the organization. “I don’t live or die with who wins or loses a game, but I’m interested in the story.”
Sports statistics very much help tell the story of Charnquist’s life. But he was much more than that to those who knew him best. They described him as a gentle soul who was kind to all and eager to help mentor any upstart journalist, future public relations professional or statistician.
“He had that kind of influence on the younger PR side of things,” son Eric Charnquist said.
Known as the “Answer Man,” Charnquist was a human version of NBA.com during his career. Ask him an NBA question, especially regarding the Blazers, and Charnquist’s mind would sift through embedded statistics — some from the 1,932 NBA games he worked — locate the information and present it like an internet server. If Charnquist didn’t know the information offhand, he would certainly look it up and get right back to you.
“He was the consummate PR professional,” Eric Charnquist said.
NUMBERS IN HIS BLOOD
Charnquist and his two sisters were raised by a single mother after his father left when he was 11. He struggled in math in school to the point where his eighth-grade teacher wrote on his report card, “Never get involved in a career that requires numbers.”
Charnquist ignored that advice.
A graduate of Portland’s Benson High School and a journalism major at Lewis & Clark College (Class of 1958), Charnquist worked for The Wall Street Journal as a local stringer soon after college and later the Oregon Journal newspaper. He later worked in sports information for the Portland State and then as the PR director at his alma mater in 1968.
When Harry Glickman founded the Blazers in 1970, he brought in a stats crew that included Charnquist, who ran the team’s first rookie camp, Larry Sellers and John Hilsenteger.
It was his part-time gig on game nights compiling statistics. He also worked for the Blazers during the draft, interviewing players and coaches and writing the press releases.
In 1987, Charnquist was let go by Lewis & Clark during a staff changeover, his son said. That led to more responsibilities with the Blazers, including a contract job producing the team’s annual media guide. He also spent two years as director of information services and sports information director at Linfield (1987-89). Later on, he helped with statistics for Portland State football.
“He was really big in the small-college scene on the sports information side of things,” Eric Charnquist said. “He had a passion for small-school college sports here in the local area.”
Years later, the Blazers hired Charnquist full-time. His duties included statistician, historian, archivist and helping with the media guide.
“They really took care of him,” Eric Charnquist said.
And Charnquist took care of those around him.
ASSISTING OTHERS
Jeff Wohler, former sports editor at The Oregonian, recalled how during the early days of his career he spent countless hours with Charnquist on press row at Memorial Coliseum keeping stats for Blazers games as well as high school state championships and other events.
A young aspiring journalist, Wohler said Charnquist served as a mentor and was always supportive of his dream of becoming a newspaperman.
“He helped me gain acceptance in the sports crowd when I was young, which gave me growing confidence,” Wohler said. “That can be a rough crowd. I once asked him if he really thought I’d be sports editor of The Oregonian one day. He just smiled. It would not have happened without his mentoring and support at an important growing time in my life.”
John Lashway, former communications director for the Blazers (1986-95), became the youngest person to hold that title in the league at age 26, replacing John White, who had been with the franchise since its inception. Lashway was nervous and maybe a bit clueless about some things at times, but he said Charnquist was there to guide him.
“Chuck really took me under his wing and taught me the dos and don’ts of how to be a PR director in the NBA,” Lashway said. “He had so much faith in me from day one.”
Charnquist frequently stood up for those he believed in.
He worked many years closely with John Hilsenteger for more than four decades from the Portland Buckaroos hockey team to the Blazers and more. Hilsenteger’s daughter, Julie Hilsenteger, became a member of the Blazers stats crew at a young age and today is the team’s head statistician.
Julie Hilsenteger went on to play soccer at Oregon. One fall, she sought to make extra money doing stats for the football and basketball teams. However, according to Julie Hilsenteger, someone in charge told her that women were not capable of doing statistics for those sports.
“Check actually wrote a letter for me,” Julie Hilsenteger said.
That letter detailed Julie’s experience and recommended her for the job. She was given a chance and excelled.
“Chuck paved the way for me there,” she said.
Mike Lund, associate athletics director for media and communications at Portland State, is also a Blazers statistician. He met Charnquist while a student at Lewis & Clark. Charnquist recommended Lund to the Blazers.
“Chuck was just a wonderful guy who was always willing to help,” Lund said. “He just showed you the right way to do things. He saw something in me and kind of inspired me and just really helped me along when I was young. And I always appreciated that.”
Aaron Grossman, Blazers director of content, said that Charnquist was a kind person who proved invaluable in helping him start his career with the organization.
“He infamously would sit down and tell story after story to anyone who would listen,” Grossman said. “He was a storyteller at heart and he wanted to pass along his wealth of knowledge to everyone that he interacted with. I was fortunate to be one of those people that got to sit down and hear a lot of those stories from him.”
GUY BEHIND THE GUY
Eric Charnquist said his father preferred to do his job and help others with anonymity.
“He loved being the guy behind the guy,” Eric Charnquist said. “He didn’t like the spotlight.”
John White, Lashway’s predecessor, had been a meticulous record keeper. Charnquist maintained the same level of dedication after White moved on.
“That was kind of his life,” Eric Charnquist said. “He loved that kind of statistical record keeping.”
Lashway said that in many ways, Charnquist was on par with legendary broadcaster Bill Schonely and Glickman in terms of what he brought to the organization. Though Charnquist’s efforts happened behind the scenes, Lashway said he shaped the organization from a communications standpoint and helped reporters tell good stories about the Blazers.
When Lashway took over media relations job for the Toronto Raptors in 1995, he flew Charnquist out to teach his stats crew how to be NBA statisticians. Lashway wanted his crew to respect the process at the same level Charnquist did.
“If he hadn’t been as diligent as he had been in that way, I’m not sure that all the stories could have been told as well as they were,” Lashway said.
Charnquist, Grossman said, is largely responsible for preserving basically everything that the organization has regarding its history.
“He just cared deeply about the history of the team and making sure that the city and the fans understood where the team came from, how it started and just how important that the team is to the city,” Grossman said.
When celebrating Charnquist’s anniversaries with the team, Grossman said the team would use themed cakes that represented Charnquist. One year the cake featured a photo of a copier in the media workroom named in his honor, the Chuck Charnquist Resource Room.
“It sounds ridiculous but the massive copier in the media room was like his baby,” Grossman said.
Another cake was a sheet cake with a handwritten box score from Game 6 of the 1977 finals.
“He wrote the literal championship box score,” Grossman said. “Those cakes sort of epitomized who he was. He was this incredible stats, media, reference guide for everyone in the company.”
Because of Charnquist’s efforts, Grossman said, the Blazers have a well-preserved museum’s worth of material to keep the organization’s history alive.
“The work that he put into preserving the history about the team and artifacts about the team will live on,” Grossman said.
Charnquist is survived by his wife, Carol, their two adult children, Eric and Susan, and two grandchildren.
POSTSCRIPT FROM WILDCATVILLE
GREAT story about Chuck Charnquist!
‘Numbers tell a story,’ Blazers statistician said
For future reference, a clarification. The story says,” He also spent two years as sports information director at Linfield (1987-89).”
In 2014, Chuck wrote a piece for the Wildcatville blog. Link to it here …
https://wildcatville.blogspot.com/2014/04/remembering-steve-davis-hes-on-my-short.html
… In that piece Chuck says, “When I went to work for Linfield in 1987 as the college’s director of information services (also wearing the hat of sports information director) …”
Yes, Chuck was Linfield SID 1987-89, but he was also Linfield director of information services the same time frame, 1987-1988 and 1988-1989.
Friday, October 29, 2021
INFO ABOUT THREE LINFIELD HEAD FOOTBALL COACHES. HOWEVER, MOST OF IT ABOUT HENRY LEVER OR HIS FAMILY
INFO ABOUT THREE LINFIELD HEAD FOOTBALL COACHES. HOWEVER, MOST OF IT ABOUT HENRY LEVER OR HIS FAMILY
July 1, 1980 -- Henry Lever died July 1, 1980, after being hit by a truck as he was running across a busy state highway in Madras. He was 96 years and the oldest active real estate broker in Oregon. (Lever: Born Oct 4, 1883. Died July 1, 1980)
June 22, 2007 — Paul Durham, one of the founding fathers of Linfield athletics, died June 22, 2007, in Honolulu at age 93. ((Durham: Born Oct 18, 1913 , Died June 22, 2007)
Oct. 20, 2021 -- Ad Rutschman's 90th birthday Oct. 30, 2021. (Rutschman born Oct. 30, 1931)
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Coaching tenures for these Linfield head football coaches ...
=Henry Lever: 1930-1938, 1940-1942 (12 seasons)
(Paul Durham was a football player for Coach Henry Lever)
=Paul Durham, Linfield 1936 grad: 1948-1967 (20 seasons)
(Ad Rutschman was a football player for Paul Durham)
=Ad Rutschman, Linfield 1954 grad: 1968-1991 (24 seasons)
...
‘Grand Old Man’ of Linfield killed
July 4, 1980, Oregon Journal, Portland/ regional report. Additional info added in 2021 by Wildcatville.
MADRAS — A graveside memorial service for Henry Lever, the "Grand Old Fund at Linfield. Man" of Linfield athletics, has been scheduled for McMinnville's Evergreen Cemetery at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Lever, 96, died Wednesday. from injuries he received when he was struck by a pickup truck while crossing Highway 97 on foot south of this central Oregon community.
Lever coached several sports at Linfield - during 18 years at the McMinnville college; beginning in 1930. He was-succeeded as athletic director in 1947 by Paul Durham. In his years as head football coach from 1930-1942, he won the Northwest Conference championship in 1935.
Lever was honored in 1977 with a banquet at the college at which time his former players bestowed on him the sobriquet as the school's "Grand Old Man" of athletics.
Lever was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended Miami University in that state. His sports participation there included playing in the first football game he ever saw.
Lever coached at Valley City State College in North Dakota, Carroll College in Wisconsin and at Texas Christian before leaving that occupation for a five-year period to farm in Alberta, Canada. He helped organize and direct one of Canada's first irrigation projects, in the Lethbridge area.
At Valley City State, Henry Lever met Marguerite E. Sherburne, an education student who enjoyed music and art. She also was an outstanding basketball player, playing forward and guard, for the women's team he coached. They married in September 1909. She died of cancer in McMinnville at age 62 in 1952.
He came to Oregon and resumed coaching in 1926 at Myrtle Point High School and four years later came to Linfield.
Following his coaching career at the college, he obtained a real estate license at the age of 70 and had been active in that endeavor in the Madras area since.
He was a 50-years member of Kiwanis.
He is survived by six sons, three of whom live in the Portland area: Henry Jr., Dan and Jim. Others are Tom, of Spokane, Wash., Robert, of Oak Harbor, Wash., and Dick, of Enterprise.
His three surviving daughters are Margaret Dement, of Madras; Debra Martin, of Springfield, and Barbara McLarty, of Portland.
The family suggested that friends wishing to make contributions do so to the Henry and Marguerite Lever Memorial Fund at Linfield.
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(Note: Story below has at least one error: His middle name was Work, not “Worth.”)
Henry Lever dies
July 4, 1980, Oregonian, Portland
Henry Worth Lever, former athletic director of Linfield College, died at age 96 in Madras Hospital after suffering fatal injuries in an automobile accident south of Madras.
Lever was athletic director at Linfield from 1930 until his retirement in 1948. The school honored him in 1977 with the celebration of "Henry Lever Day." He was born in Cincinnati in 1993 and graduated from Ohio University in 1908.
He coached at Valley City State College in North Dakota, Texas Christian University and Myrtle Point High School before moving to Linfield.
Lever was a professor emeritus of physical education at Linfield, teaching all major sports and many minor ones. In one season, 1935-36, he led his three teams – football, basketball and track – to championships.
Graveside service will be held in McMinnville, Tuesday, July 8, at 11 a.m. at the family’s plot at Evergreen Cemetery.
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A different story in the July 4, 1980, Oregonian said, Henry W. Lever was age 94 and from Madras, Ore. The story quoted Jefferson County deputies as saying a “pickup struck mortally injured Lever as he attempted to cross U.S. 97 a short distance south of the Madras city limited.”
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Margaret Dement celebrates 105th birthday in Madras, Oregon
Aug. 17, 2016, Madras Pioneer
Photo cutline: Margaret Dement, at center, poses with family members Margee Moschetti, left, Kristina Granby, Jon and Marian Granby, and great-grandson Tierson, 3, during her party last Friday at Chinook Place in Madras.
Margaret Dement sat in a comfy chair last Friday, greeting a steady flow of friends, who came to wish her a happy 105th birthday.
Her son-in-law and daughter, Jon and Marian Granby, and granddaughters Kristina Granby and Margee Moschetti threw her a party with two cakes, historical posters and old family photos, at Chinook Place, in Madras, where Dement now lives.
Dement graciously agreed to pose for a newspaper photo, but commented to the photographer, “You know, the older you get, the less publicity you want.”
The Pioneer had a feature article, written by Holly Gill in February 2015, about Dement at age 103, while she was still living on her own, playing the piano and baking cookies for friends.
She attributes her long life to good genes, since her father lived to be 96. She said she also never smoked or drank.
She was born Aug. 12, 1911, in Dixon, Mo., to parents Henry and Marguerite Lever. Her family moved quite a bit, as her father coached football at Texas Christian University, supervised a cotton and cattle plantation in Louisiana, farmed in Alberta, Canada, ranched near Gold Beach, Ore., coached in Myrtle Point, then spend 18 years at Linfield College, where he coached football and taught algebra and geometry.
Margaret graduated from Myrtle Point High School in 1930. Because of their dad’s position, she and three of her eight siblings were allowed to attend Linfield College at no cost, and she graduated in 1934 with a bachelor’s degree in English, with a music minor.
Her first job was teaching English and directing the band at Glendale High School for $90 a month.
On Feb. 25, 1938, she married Karl Dement, and they moved to Coquille, where he ran a butcher shop. She worked as a substitute teacher, then in 1940, they had a son, Erik.
During World War II, her husband served with the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific. While he was gone, their son, Erik, 2 1/2, died in a tragic drowning accident. Heartbroken, she moved back to McMinnville to be near her family, and worked as a typist.
She got through that time by reciting a religious verse. “That’s what religion is for – to pull us through. There are some things you can’t do a darn thing about,” she said.
With money her husband sent home, she bought a house in McMinnville, where they lived when he returned in 1945. They had two more children, Tom Dement, and Marian Granby, of Madras.
In 1952, the Dements moved to the Myrtle Point area, where he raised cattle and she taught choir at the high school.
In 1965, the Dements separated and Margaret Dement moved to Madras, where her father worked as a real estate agent, and two of her brothers lived.
She worked in her father’s office, taught piano lessons, played music for a local theater group, and was the curator of the Jefferson County Museum for many years.
A lover of learning, Dement was an avid reader, kept up on politics, and has continued to be a regular writer of letters to the editor to this day.
She enjoyed traveling with Elderhostel, and visited England, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, and areas of the U.S.
When she was younger, she enjoyed gardening, and is proud her church named its garden after her, the "Margaret Dement Garden of Eatin’.” She was also honored as the Jefferson County Senior of the Year in 2004.
Her family includes Tom Dement, of Tucson, Ariz., Marian and Jon Granby, of Madras; grandchildren, Christopher Blue, Kristina Granby, and Margee Moschetti; and great-grandson Tierson Moschetti, 3.
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